Posts Tagged ‘Raghu Rai’

What also may appear archaic to young photographers is your insistence on reading. You advise photographers to take a course in literature rather than photography…

I don’t think there’s anything to go to photo school for. I could teach you how to make a photograph in two days. Where does that leave photography? So I say to young people, what you need to become is the author of your work.

How do you find your voice? Literature shows you something about life. The family portraits I could have taken had I known William Shakespeare when I took them. Who understands jealousy, betrayal, treachery, all these human emotions that are so much part of family life, better than Shakespeare?

A comparative literature course is a great one for anyone interested in photography. You can study how Italo Calvino finds a new form for every work; how Geoff Dyer completely takes the idea of the novel apart and stitches it back together, how he has the courage to write a book [Out of Sheer Rage] about a book that never gets written; how Michael Ondaatje knows just when to stop, to keep you guessing.

When I read [Dyer’s] Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, I was on a grant from Harvard to photograph ‘social issues’. It was a lot of money and very prestigious and it was a trap. I took the photographs I thought Harvard wanted during the day, and photos for myself at night. I was obsessed with this hallucinogenic colour of Calcutta at night. I learned from Dyer how you can weave together two different books and complicate both.

Master-photographer Raghu Rai, who was nominated by Henri Cartier-Bresson to join Magnum, in conversation with ASRP Mukesh in The Pioneer, on his entry into photography and what it takes to be a good lensman:

# “Skills are never taught, they are acquired. I can give you a camera, but can’t feed your vision.”

# “Photography is a strguggle to respond to the situation and realise its importance. Death and life don’t wait for anyone. One has to understand this hidden meaning before picking up a camera.”

# “Non-professional photographers should begin clicking portraints as it teaches them to connect with emotions better than juggling between doing overambitious pictures.”

# “If your mind is not connected to what you are shooting then you are not a good photographer.”

# “A creative photographer is one who either captures mystery or reveals things, everything else is useless.”

This news photograph of an zoo elephant on the run on the streets of Mysore, shot by NAGESH PANATHALE of the Mysore bureau of the Kannada daily Vijaya Karnataka, has bagged the second prize in the journalism category at the national photography salon 2008 organised by the Photographic Society of Madras as part of its 150th anniversary celeberations. (Mohamed Khalid Khan of Dainik Jagran won the first prize.)

The jury comprised Benu Sen of Calcutta, H.S. Ganesh and T.N. Perumal from Bangalore, Iqbal Mohamed from Ooty, and Venkat Ram from Madras. The valedictory function of the photography was attended by India’s bestknown photographer Raghu Rai, who is also the Magnum member of world photography.